Education development in Syria

SYRIA EDU.

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT in SYRIA

According to many prominent Middle Eastern historians and scholars, the nation of Syria, located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and sharing borders with Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon, faces many difficult challenges in the coming decades. Its young president, Bashar al-Asad, inherited from his late father Hafiz al-Asad a rather closed and stagnant state which is currently experiencing a number of serious problems related to its economy, politics, religious affiliations and especially education. In the 1990's, Syria experienced significant economic growth, particularly in the private sector; however, more than 65% of all Syrians had fallen below the poverty line and nearly 60% of Syrians (which is still in effect today) were under the age of twenty-one which made the economy "unproductive and placed heavy demands on the state," especially in the area of education (the Middle East, 414). Thus, the education of Syria's young people is so crucial that if not achieved it could signal further serious problems for the Syrian economy in the guise of highly-educated but secularly ignorant students who upon entering the global arena may find it impossible to compete with their Westernized counterparts.

Beginning in the late 1960's, primary and secondary schools and all institutions of higher learning at the university level came under the control of the Syrian government with the Ministry of Education being "responsible for all aspects of administration" and curricula development ("Syrian Education," Internet). In 1967, Syria signed the Arab Cultural Unity Agreement with its Arab neighbors which introduced new curricula examinations, teaching methods and teacher training requirements for every educational level. Unfortunately, this new system proved to be quite ineffective, due to being based solely on Islam and the decision of the minister of education to make "no attempt to inculcate notions of tolerance or respect for religious traditions other than Sunni Islam" and certain tenets of Christianity (Landis, "Islamic Education in Syria," Internet).

This educational process continued into the 1980's with policies reflecting the ideals and tenets of the Baath Party which utilized the Syrian educational system as a way to "indoctrinate the masses," being those under twenty-one, "with its ideology and to make school training responsive" to Syria's manpower needs, i.e., its human capital in the form of religiously-indoctrinated young men. By the late 1980's, primary school enrollment of young males was fully achieved, but enrollment in secondary schools "dropped to 67% for boys and 35% for girls" which indicates a high dropout rate. At this time, the University of Damascus was providing classes in law, science, medicine, engineering, economics and education, while the ruling Baath Party "operated an institute of political science" and conducted "mandatory classes in political orientation" and Syrian history ("Syrian Education," Internet).

Yet despite these and other educational advancements and initiatives, it has been estimated that in the early 1990's over two million Syrians, being 42% of the population under eighteen years of age, were technically illiterate. Certainly, this was a huge blow to the Islamic-based educational system in Syria; in fact, it was so negative that the Syrian government under Bashar al-Asad struggled valiantly to "meet the economic and political needs of society." However, by the mid-1990's, the Syrian educational system was still in trouble, due to being inadequately funded which forced some outside observes to comment that Syria "had failed miserably to achieve its limited objectives and educational goals." Other observers in the West noted that "although the Syrian government has been seeking to improve" its educational system, the overall task was "formidable because of many shortcomings and defects" ("Syrian Education," Internet). In 2000, Bashar al-Asad decided that it was time to install a number of reforms in Syria's educational system which included "curricular reform of religious education," but so far in 2008, Islamic textbooks are still mandated in all classes and subjects (Landis, "Islamic Education in Syria," Internet). Obviously, there has not been much change in the Syrian government's educational outlook over the last forty years, but those changes which have occurred have done little to move Syria's educational system into the global educational and economic realities of the 21st century.

In regards to human capital in the form of young men and women in Syria, the 2008 MENA Development Report, issued by the World Bank, declares that human capital "is considered an important determinant of economic growth," and when a nation like Syria decides to invest in human capital "through education, there is the potential for generating benefits to society" (the Road Not Traveled, 7), especially related to improving a nation's capacity to compete economically in a global environment such as we have in today's modern world. In Chapter 1 of this report, the authors pose several important questions -- first, "How much have MENA countries invested in human capital through education?" within the past forty years, and second, "What has been the impact of this investment on the level, quality and distribution of human capital?" (the Road Not Traveled, 9). In order to answer these questions, we must consult a number of tables in the MENA report which sheds much light on Syria's past and current educational system and how it is linked to the country's economy.

First of all, in Table 1.1., the Average of Public Expenditure in Education as a Percentage of GDP, between 1965 and 1974, the percentage stood at 3.3; between 1975 and 1984, 5.4; between 1985 and 1994, 4.3, and between 1995 and 2003, 3.2 which indicates that Syria's expenditures on education rose between 1975 and 1984 and then dropped to a level almost equal to the period of 1965 to 1974. These numbers show that Syria's need for human capital as it relates to education started off relatively well and then plummeted, perhaps due to changes in Syria's economic conditions in the 1990's. In Table 1.2, Public Expenditure per Student, we find that primary spending per pupil in 1980 stood at $22 and in 2002 had risen to $477; secondary spending per pupil in 2002 stood at $883, but tertiary spending per pupil in 2002 is blank, due to a lack of data. In Table 1.5, Average Years of Schooling for those over the age of fifteen, in 1960 the number stood at 1.35, in 1980 at 3.65 and in 2000 at 5.77. These last figures demonstrate that despite the Syrian government's mandate of providing an education to all of its citizens, most never went beyond the 6th grade (the Road Not Traveled, 11, 12 & 16). As to test scores, Table 1.6, the Average Test Scores of TIMSS and PISA, reveals that in 2003 there were no test scores available for Syria; however, for the three Gulf States of Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the MENA Development Report claims that test scores for these states were "essentially flat," one reason being that "the very high GDP/capita in the three oil states reflects wealth per inhabitant" and is not the "kind of wealth based on higher education... associated with children's higher academic performance in school" (the Road Not Traveled, 19-20).